The popularity of streaming videos, especially on mobile devices (e.g., cellular telephones, laptop computers, tablets, personal digital assistants, and the like) has created a challenge to service providers to, for example, provide consistently high quality video playback. Traditional approaches to streaming videos on mobile devices typically result in an inconsistent quality of experience (QoE) for the user due to the mobile device's limited hardware capabilities, and reliance on volatile wireless network conditions. Meanwhile, mobile devices are often equipped with unutilized hardware and software features that could aid in increasing a user's QoE when streaming videos. Such features include a global positioning system (GPS) receiver that enables location-based services, such as route prediction. Thus, there is a need for an approach that utilizes the built-in hardware and software features common in mobile devices to increase the QoE of streaming videos on mobile devices.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for location-based transmission control protocol (TCP) throughput predictions and carrier-assisted video rate adaptation.